Business, Product, and Process

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The Coffee Shop Moment That Changed Everything

Imagine this: You're sitting at a coffee shop, laptop open, making last-minute adjustments to your roadmap before your next sprint planning. Across the room, you overhear a conversation between two executives. They're discussing next quarter’s business strategy—customer acquisition, revenue targets, partnerships. They’re making decisions that will directly impact your product.

Yet, your name never comes up. Your product doesn’t come up.

You sip your coffee, realizing something crucial: You’ve been so focused on executing the process of product that you haven’t inserted yourself into the business of product—where the real decisions happen.

Sound familiar? Many PMs find themselves here. They’re in the room but not at the table. The difference? Influence. Ownership. And the ability to drive outcomes, not just optimize for them.

The Process of Product: Optimizing for Execution

The process of product is about efficiency and predictability. It’s where you:

• Define and prioritize product features using established frameworks (e.g., RICE, Kano, JTBD).

• Ensure alignment with predefined business goals and key objectives.

• Manage cross-functional collaboration between engineering, design, and marketing.

• Ship features, iterate, optimize, and measure outcomes based on OKRs and KPIs.

At this level, you’re an executor. You ensure things get done. You influence decisions within your team or department, but the big-picture strategy? That’s often shaped elsewhere.

This is essential work—but it’s reactive. You’re responding to business goals rather than defining them.

The Business of Product: Shaping the Game

Now, let’s contrast that with the business of product. Here, the role shifts from execution to ownership. Instead of fitting product decisions into pre-set business goals, you actively shape those goals.

PMs who operate at this level:

• Understand market dynamics. They analyze trends, customer behaviors, and competitive landscapes beyond just feature development.

• Work with, not for, stakeholders. Instead of being handed business objectives, they collaborate on setting them.

• Think beyond the roadmap. They connect the dots between revenue, go-to-market strategies, pricing models, and product-market fit.

• Influence company direction. They play a role in investment decisions, partnerships, and innovation strategies.

At this stage, you’re not just making product decisions—you’re making business decisions that impact product.

Popular Case Study: Airbnb’s Shift from Growth to Business Strategy

Consider Airbnb. Early on, their product team was focused heavily on growth metrics—acquiring more hosts, increasing bookings, optimizing the platform. Classic process of product thinking.

But at some point, they faced a strategic dilemma: Growth alone wouldn’t make Airbnb sustainable. Regulations, legal battles, and market shifts threatened their model. The business needed strategic evolution—not just product iteration.

This is where the business of product kicked in. Airbnb’s leadership pivoted from growth-focused features to solving for business resilience. Instead of just optimizing their core product, they expanded into experiences, introduced long-term stays, and even adjusted their business model to better align with global regulatory landscapes.

Product decisions weren’t just about what users needed—they were about where the business needed to go next.

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The Skills Gap: Why Many PMs Never Make the Leap

Most PMs are aware of this shift, but the real challenge is the skill gap. Execution skills alone don’t prepare you for strategic ownership.

To move from process-driven to business-driven, PMs need to build additional competencies:

This is where many PMs stagnate. They excel at product development but haven’t mastered business fundamentals like pricing models, financial forecasting, or strategic partnerships.

The Growth PM Misconception: A Partial Answer?

Many PMs who start seeing the bigger picture position themselves as Growth PMs. Growth functions (acquisition, retention, conversion optimization) bridge product and business, but they aren’t the full answer.

Growth focuses on metrics that drive user and revenue expansion, but the business of product extends beyond just growth levers. It includes:

• Corporate Strategy → How does the product shape long-term business viability?

• Innovation Strategy → What new markets and revenue streams should we explore?

• Operational Efficiency → How do we scale without burning resources?

Simply put: Growth is a subset of the business of product—but it’s not the whole picture.

Are You in the Room or at the Table?

So, how do you tell where you stand? Ask yourself:

• Do I set product goals, or do I only execute on pre-set objectives?

• Am I influencing company strategy, or am I just aligning my roadmap to it?

• How well do I understand our business model, revenue levers, and market position?

• Would leadership turn to me for input on business decisions, or just product decisions?

If you find yourself in the execution-only camp, it’s time to level up.

But wait, What Do We Call This?

This isn’t just about being a Growth PM, a Technical PM, or even a Generalist PM. This is a shift into a new category of PM—one who owns both product and business outcomes.

Some companies call this Head of Product Strategy, VP of Product, or even Chief Product Officer. But titles aside, the key question is: Are you influencing product, or are you influencing business through product?

If we had to name this role, what would it be?

Let’s discuss. Hit reply and share your thoughts.

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